“How beautifully you’ve captured it. You’ve rather swept me away.”
He ran a hand down his hair, then sent her a look she could not read, small and slight and maybe abashed.
CHAPTER 5
There are certain people in this world who have the ability to make you feel as if you’re the only person in the universe who matters to them. Whether it’s moment by moment or enough years to count up to a lifetime, they look you in the eyes and smile at you, direct and sincere—and you’re smitten.
They draw you into their realm, into their rendering of events and ideas and rituals. Everything they say becomes vitally important. Every action of theirs becomes truth. Sometimes these people are innocents—this is a charisma they were born with; they did not earn it; it’s simply their birthright—and sometimes it is a craft they practice, a manipulation. They set out to entice you, to seduce you, simply because they can—or because they want something in return.
It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes.
Your father had that gift, and I believe it was inherent. He never meant to seduce me or anybody else. To this day, I don’t think he had any nefarious intentions about anything in his whole life. He would simply pin you with his gaze and tilt his head and smile his wry, charming smile . . .
It wasn’t merely that he was so rich, or so worldly, or so intelligent. It was that when he spoke, his deep voice melted over you like molasses. When he touched your skin, even for just a handshake, you felt important. You felt as if you mattered, whatever your name or fortune or background.
That was Jack Astor’s talent: his presence. His attention.
Those canny winter eyes.
That was one of his talents, at least.
* * *
After that weekend, he suggested a picnic.
I suggested tidepools, the Shore Path, an afternoon at the beach.
He motored to the house to pick us up, the first time he’d ever come by.
He brought Vincent. And the dog.
August 1910
Bar Harbor
“There is a strange man outside,” Katherine announced, standing by the parlor window, her pinkie parting, very slightly, the Youghal lace curtains.
Mother looked up from her embroidery, alert. “The colonel? He’s early.”
“No. Not him. The colonel would not be strange. This gentleman is lurking across the way, beneath the Pattersons’ old red oak. He is pretending not to notice me noticing him.”
Madeleine, walking into the room, crossed to the window and opened the curtains wider.
Mother sent her a frowning look. “My dear, have you finished dressing?”
“I have.”
“That’s what you’ve chosen to wear? I think you’ll be too cold in muslin today. Why don’t you go put on the green ocher satin?”
Madeleine leaned cautiously closer to the panes, searching the tree-dappled shadows lining the lane. “It’s a picnic, Mother, not an evening at the opera. I’d look ridiculous in satin at the beach.”
Katherine lifted a finger to point. Madeleine found him then, a broad-shouldered man leaning casually against the trunk of a tree. He wore a charcoal-colored suit and bowler and had turned his side to the Force home as if it were of no interest to him. He lifted a cigarillo to his mouth, inhaling slowly, breathing out a long, blue twist of smoke. If he carried a camera, Madeleine couldn’t see it.
“That’s not Ned Patterson?” she asked.
“Definitely not. Ned’s shorter. And he dislikes tobacco.”
Mother stood up, tossing her embroidery to the chair. “I wish your father was here. I do hate it that he is gone on the weekdays.”
“How did he know?” Madeleine wondered. “How did he realize Jack would be coming by?”
Mother didn’t hear her, but her sister did; Katherine shot her a covert smile. “Jack now, is it?”
Madeleine lifted a shoulder.
“I can think of two possibilities,” Katherine said finally, returning her attention to the lurking man. “Either someone in the colonel’s household shared information they should not have . . .”
Madeleine waited for her to finish, that sense of heavy tightness in her chest descending upon her once more, almost like drowning.
“Or else he didn’t know. Doesn’t. And he’s just . . . here. Because you are.”
“That seems much worse.”
“Yes,” said Katherine. “It does.”
“I’ll have Matthews send him off,” Mother said from behind them. “It would be pleasant to offer Colonel Astor a measure of privacy, at least here in our own home.”
Madeleine and Katherine exchanged a look. Matthews, their butler, was genteel and efficient and about a thousand years old.
“Too late for any of that.” Katherine released the panel of lace. “The colonel’s here.”
The sound of an automobile roaring up the lane, powerful and rough, was impossible to miss. The man beneath the oak pushed away from its trunk, flicked his cigarillo to the grass, and crushed it beneath his heel. Madeleine began to pull on her gloves.
“Maddy,” Mother said sharply. “We are a civilized household. Allow Colonel Astor to come to the door.”
“No,” Madeleine said. “We’ll meet him outside. Otherwise, the next thing you know that fellow out there will be tapping at the windows to get his story, and soon everyone will be reading about the color of our walls and the arrangement of the furniture. Are you ready, Katherine? Yes? Let’s go.”
Mother sighed. “Poor Cook has spent half the morning preparing choux à la crème for him. She’ll be so crushed.”
“Tell her I’m sorry, I really am. We’ll have cream puffs by the ocean, anyway, I imagine. Or sandwiches. Or something. We’ll be back before you know it. ’Bye, Mother.”
She didn’t even wait for Matthews to reach for the door, didn’t pause to pacify her mother further or to see if her sister followed. Madeleine finished with her gloves, adjusted her hat, opened the front door, and walked outside into the sunlit day as if she had every right to do so.
Because she did. It was her home, on her street, and she did not have to be intimidated by a stranger beneath an oak. She didn’t. She wasn’t.
She chanced a swift glance at the man—he had abandoned his nonchalant pose to scrawl something in a notebook—but after that looked only at the colonel, still seated behind the wheel of his touring car in his driving cap and duster, breaking into a smile as he caught sight of her.
In the high back seat, Kitty was clambering to stand upright on the cushions beside Vincent, her tail tracing a wide, cheerful loop in the air.
“Great,” Katherine grumbled, hurrying to catch up. “I suppose I’ll have to sit in the back with Sir Surly so you can be next to Jack.”
“Keep the dog between you. She’ll be better company.”
* * *
They followed the coast for miles, with the engine of the shiny yellow Atlas a grinding, uneven roar in Madeleine’s ears as Jack shifted gears and slowed, shifted gears and sped up. Conversation without shouting was impossible. She kept one hand locked around the strap on the door and the other on her hat, watching the shoreline, the surf, the colonel. A distant haze blurred the horizon where the ocean kissed the sky, but closer in, both shone vivid blue. The air rushed by fresh and warm, almost tropical.